There were no double-digit price gains in the country’s hottest real estate markets this year. Instead, Calgary, Toronto and Vancouver saw prices increase between 5% and 7%, according to each city’s real estate board.

And as Sal Guatieri predicted, interest rates held steady.

But that will change in 2015, says the senior economist at BMO Capital Markets. Rates will go up, but slowly.

“We don’t expect the Bank of Canada to begin raising rates until October 2015,” says Guatieri. “The overnight lending rate, currently at 1%, likely won’t reach a more neutral level of 3.3% for another three years. Longer-term mortgage rates will also rise gradually.”

As a result, home prices and sales will stabilize next year. “The ‘Hot 3 cities’ should see much slower price appreciation next year, while most other regions will see modest price gains,” he says, adding Toronto and Vancouver could even see prices decline in the next three years.

Nationally, the average home will cost $404,800 by year-end. That figure will rise to $410,600 in 2015, and $417,300 in 2016, notes MLS.

Meanwhile, about 189,500 housing starts are expected, according to CMHC. This is in line with 2014, which should see 189,000 units by year-end.

“[There will be] a slight moderation in multi-unit starts during 2015, which will be offset by an increase in single-detached starts,” says Bob Dugan, chief economist for CMHC. “Looking ahead to 2016, expectations are for total starts to moderate, as builders focus on reducing their inventories.”

So where’s the opportunity for real estate investors?

Guatieri warns about investing in detached property in Vancouver or Toronto, “as lofty valuations suggest the returns will be low and prices are at risk of falling when interest rates rise.” Condos and townhouses will offer better value.

Also, keep an eye on demographics and economic activity. “Housing markets are much weaker in eastern Canada due to [slower growth], older populations and weaker economies than in Ontario and western Canada. Cities such as Calgary [and] Montreal, which attract a relatively larger share of the one-quarter million international migrants to Canada will see stronger housing markets.”

Regional breakdown

Toronto

Sales are expected to increase, before moderating in 2016, notes Dana Senagama, CMHC’s senior market analyst for the Greater Toronto Area.

“An increasing desire among millennial and baby boomer populations to live an urban life will also fuel higher demand for condominium apartments over the next two years,” she says.

Guatieri adds steady buying from immigrants and echo boomers will support the market, cushioning any price declines.

Montreal

Montreal will see support from international migrants, says Guatieri, so there’ll be “steady sales activity and modestly rising prices in coming years.”

Kevin Hughes, CMHC regional economist for Quebec, adds, “A gradual pick up in Quebec’s economic growth over the next two years will provide some stimulus to housing demand. During this period, resale markets will tighten somewhat, which will help sustain housing starts. However, despite an edging up of demand, the expected supply levels will keep price growth below the 2% mark.”

Calgary

The market should remain healthy, predicts Guatieri, but will see slower sales and price appreciation. That’s due to the recent decline in oil prices, which will likely dampen investment in the energy sector and slow job growth. “We expect oil prices to firm next year, but an unexpected further decline would undercut Calgary’s housing market more severely.”

Meanwhile, the province saw regional price gains of 4.7% this year to $399,000, notes CMHC. The average price will continue to rise, but at a slower pace to $407,800 in 2015, and $417,500 in 2016.

Vancouver

“Housing demand will be supported by employment and population growth, but tempered by gradually rising mortgage interest rates,” says Carol Frketich, CMHC’s B.C. regional economist.

In B.C., existing MLS home sales are forecast to total 79,200 units in 2015, and 79,300 units in 2016. The average home price is forecast at $566,300 in 2015, and $573,000 in 2016.

Source: Suzanne Sharma, Advisor.ca

After 18 months on the job, Bank of Canada governor Stephen Poloz has yet to wield the primary tool at his disposal: the key interest rate.

When Poloz took the bank’s reins in June 2013, he inherited an overnight rate set nearly three years earlier by his predecessor Mark Carney. That rate has yet to budge from one per cent, idling for one of the longest stretches in Bank of Canada history.

Bill Robson, the president of the C.D. Howe Institute think-tank, believes it will happen sometime in 2015 thanks to an increasingly positive economic outlook, including an improving U.S. economy and a pickup in Canadian exports.

Once the bank’s overnight rate starts to creep up, Canadian businesses will see their borrowing rates rise as will consumers who take out car loans and mortgages.

Ian Lee, a professor at the Sprott School of Business at Ottawa’s Carleton University, predicts businesses will feel the sting of higher rates right away, but he expects the effect on households to be much more muted.

Many consumers, he added, will avoid a sudden jolt because of fixed-rate loans and mortgages.

On top of that, Lee said the rate would likely inch up a quarter-percentage point at a time, making the coming increases easier to manage than the towering Canadian levels of the early 1980s.

Lee said the rate hikes in the early 80s killed the real-estate market, but didn’t create a housing meltdown and the number of foreclosures barely increased.

On the flip side, higher rates would help pension funds reap a bigger return on their investments, Lee added.

McGill University economics professor Christopher Ragan said, fundamentally, rising rates are a good thing.

“It is signalling a stronger economy,” he said.

The Bank of Canada said last week the country had showed signs of a “broadening recovery” and the output gap appeared to be smaller than it had projected just six weeks earlier. The output gap represents the divide between where the economy stands at a given time and where it would be when performing at its full potential.

However, the bank’s statement offset the positives by pointing to potential threats: weakening oil prices that drive down inflation and the significant risks of high household debt accumulated during years of low borrowing rates.

The basic logic behind low rates is to encourage people to gather debt when the economy is weak, said Ragan, who has worked at the Bank of Canada.

Robson belongs to the camp that expects Canada’s strengthening economy to force Poloz to move the rate in the middle of 2015, while Lee predicts the rapidly shrinking output gap will spur an increase as early as this spring.

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development recently predicted the Bank of Canada would start pushing the rate up in late May due to advancing inflation, a key driver of interest rates.

At the other end of the spectrum, economists like David Madani of Capital Economics expect Poloz to stand pat for a while, even after the U.S. Federal Reserve starts hiking its own key rate.

He predicts the forces pushing Canadian inflation upwards to remain fairly subdued in 2015, which he says will keep the central bank in a “holding pattern” for the whole year.

Robson said it would even be OK if Poloz raised rates and then edged them back down, if necessary.

“Everybody knows that the central bank has trouble reading the economy just as everyone else does,” he said.

Source: Andy Blatchford, The Canadian Press

One measure which suggests that housing demand is relatively strong heading into 2015 is the number-of-months’ supply of homes for sale in Canada, which declined from 5.9 to 5.8 in October, its lowest level since April of 2012.

Also, year-over-year house prices in the Teranet/National Bank House Price Index (+5.4% Oct) and the Canadian Real Estate Assn House Price Index (+5.5% Oct) have trended gradually higher since the beginning of 2014. However, the rates of increase in both indexes early in the final quarter of 2014 are nowhere near the levels they reached in 2006 of 14.1%, and 13.0% respectively and early in 2010 (12.7% and 12.5%).

Turning to the supply of dwellings, housing starts in Canada have remained quite stable. Indeed, over the past two years, starts have averaged 190,000 units seasonally adjusted at annual rates (SAAR) which is at or very close to the estimated rate of household formation. Further, despite the steady uptrend in existing home sales and the above noted gradual increase in house prices, housing starts trended lower since mid year.

Another indicator of housing market health is the percentage of mortgages that are more than ninety days in arrears. In line with the very gradual decline in the number of regular Employment Insurance beneficiaries and the unemployment rate since the beginning of the year, the percentage of mortgages more than ninety days in arrears has trended down from 0.32% in January to 0.29% in August, its lowest value since September of 2007.

Further according to the most recent Annual State of the Residential Mortgage Market in Canada published by the Canadian Assn of Accredited Mortgage Professionals, approximately 77% of the 1.35 million homeowners who renewed their mortgates in 2014 saw a 0.8% drop in their mortgage rate. This decline in mortage rates over the past year suggests that the majority of mortgage holders renewing over the next twelve months will also see a reduction in rates.

Looking forward, the fundamental drivers of housing demand in Canada appear more positive now than they have been for several quarters. First, over the past two months, Canada has added 117,000 jobs, the vast majority of which (96,000) are full time. Second, according to a recent study by CIBC, immigration has made a much stronger contribution to growth of Canada’s prime 25-44 age group than was previously estimated. Indeed, over the past five years, growth of this age group, the major driver of employment and household formation, has accelerated from -0.8% y/y in 2009 to +1.1% in 2014.

This rate is well above the average growth of the OECD and 75% faster than in the United States. Third, in addition to giving a boost to consumer spending, lower energy prices should, by increasing discretionary income, make home ownership more affordable. Finally, interest rates are likely to remain low well into the middle of the year and while they may edge higher in the second half of 2015, they are unlikely to chill housing demand significantly. Given these positive fundamentals, we expect housing starts to total in the range of 185,000 to 195,000 in 2015 compared to an estimated 190,000 in 2014.

Source: John Clinkard, Daily Commercial News

Even though real estate prices have been rising faster than inflation and are going through the roof in some parts of Canada, home ownership actually became more affordable in the third quarter, according to a quarterly survey by RBC Economics.

The bank credits rising household incomes, low interest rates and lower utility costs in some markets for making it a bit easier to own a home.

During the July-to-September period, RBC’s housing affordability measure at the national level fell 0.2 percentage points to 47.8 per cent for two-storey homes. It also fell for condos – down 0.3 percentage points to 27.1 per cent.

“A trend that jumped out in the latest data was a further broad improvement in affordability of condos where a strong majority of markets across Canada saw the measure for the segment fall,” said RBC chief economist Craig Wright in a release.

“Condos no doubt continue to be the more affordable ownership option in every market.”

The affordability measure for detached bungalows was the outlier; it rose a tenth of a percentage point to 42.6 per cent.

An affordability reading of 50 means that ownership costs, which include mortgage costs, property taxes and utility costs, would require 50 per cent of a household’s monthly gross income.

The latest data from the Canadian Real Estate Association shows that the national average home resale price rose 7.1 per cent on a year-over-year basis in October.

The MLS home price index, which many observers consider a better indicator of home price trends, rose 5.5 per cent over the same period.

Some markets, notably Vancouver, Toronto and Calgary, have seen real estate prices rise much faster than the national average. The bank notes that it is the robust activity in these three markets that has been largely responsible for eight monthly increases in resales in the last nine months.

Affordability remains a big stretch in Vancouver and Toronto. The cost of a benchmark detached bungalow in Vancouver, for instance, requires 83.6 per cent of a typical household’s pretax income to carry. In Toronto, it takes 56.3 per cent.

RBC says a drop in fixed mortgage rates earlier this year helped to drive the current strength in the housing market. But it doesn’t expect that situation to last.

“A combination of gradually increasing interest rates and higher prices will likely reverse the improvement in housing affordability that took place in the past year and weigh more and more heavily on homebuyer demand in Canada,” said Wright.

“We expect the next stage of the housing cycle to be a transition toward lower resales and slower price increases.”

RBC said it expects the Bank of Canada to raise its key overnight lending rates in the middle of next year, but says longer-term rates will rise “well before that.”

Source: CBC News

Rumours of the great Canadian housing bubble are greatly exaggerated, says Greg Klump, chief economist for the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA).

While Canadian housing prices have increased an average 6.9 per cent so far this year (the highest in a decade), the more accurate housing price index (HPI) has increased 5.2 per cent for the first 10 months of 2014, which is the best in three years, according to CREA.

Moreover, if you take Toronto, Vancouver and to a lesser extent Calgary out of the picture, the average price increase would be several percentage points lower, while other market measures, like sales-to-listings ratios and month’s supply of homes for sale, are close to their 10-year averages.

“The problem with housing market bubble stories is that they fail to recognize fundamental housing market dynamics,” Klump told the Association of Regina Realtors in Regina Thursday. “For a big price correction to take place, we need a big and lasting run up in supply … or a big and lasting drop in demand … or some combination of the two.”

Since neither a recession (which would result in massive layoffs) nor a big spike in interest rates (which would drive up debt-servicing costs) is on the horizon, Klump said: “I just don’t see that happening.”

Still even reputable agencies like Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp have expressed concern about Canadian housing prices, which have continued to outstrip U.S. home prices in 2013, even when inflation and exchange rates are taken into account. “This Canadian ‘premium’ could be cause for concern because it may indicate that house prices in Canada are overvalued,” CMHC said in its annual Canadian Housing Observer released Thursday.

Following his presentation, Klump said CMHC’s concern is that “average house price growth is being stretched” by increasing average prices in two of Canada’s most active markets, Vancouver and Toronto.

“What’s going on in Vancouver and Toronto reflects a couple of things,” Klump said. “No. 1, you’ve got some very high-priced homes making up a greater proportion of the sales, pulling up the average price in those markets and for Canada as well.”

For example, Toronto saw a nine per cent year-overyear increase in average home prices in October, versus the 5.5 per cent increase in HPI nationally.

In addition, those price increases are largely in the central Toronto area, where “densification” initiatives (i.e., condo construction) have driven up the price of single-detached homes.

“It’s a function of the market because you don’t have enough supply to catch up with the demand,” Klump said.

“In Vancouver, you’re capped by geography. There’s no place to go. So there’s a lot of expensive homes being sold and an ongoing shortage of affordable homes.”

Source: Bruce Johnstone, The StarPhoenix

That’s the news from the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA). The data reflect sales that are stronger than expected, with recent months showing higher performance than experts foresaw. Nevertheless, sales activity is expected to reach a peak in the third quarter as the impact of a deferred spring fades and price increases push down sales by reducing affordability and pricing potential purchasers out of the market.

The increase will see 2014 slightly outperform the 10-year average, while remaining broadly in line with it. In other words, this is a slight improvement on an already healthy business as usual, not a deviation from normality. There have been periods of monthly volatility since the depths of the 2008-9 recession, but annual activity has remained fairly stable. This stability contrasts favourably with the sharp growth seen just prior to the 2008 crash: Canada is undergoing a prolonged period of stable growth, not the run-up to a bubble.

Broken down by region, British Columbia is by far the biggest winner, expected to post an 11.9% year-on-year increase in activity, with Alberta running in second place and expected to show a 7.7% rise. Demand in both provinces is running at multi-year highs, as the desirability of residence in Vancouver or Edmonton combats the downward push of rising prices on demand.

Other regions are not posting such success stories, though. In Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, and New Brunswick, activity is expected to remain in line with 2013 levels and sales will increase in the range between 1% and 2% – lower in Ontario and New Brunswick than in Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

And some provinces are not sharing in the sales boom at all. In Nova Scotia and in Newfoundland and Labrador, sales are down by 3.9% and 5.2% respectively, providing a rural mirror to the urban boom that pushed up the national statistics.

The national average price has largely followed predictions since the spring, and is currently forecast to rise by 5.9% to $405,000 by the end of 2014, again with rises concentrated in British Columbia and Alberta. Ontario is expected to experience a similar rise, while Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Newfoundland and Labrador are expected to see rises of only about 1%. Quebec isn’t expected to manage more than half that, while prices in New Brunswick are forecast to flatline, and in Nova Scotia CREA expects them to fall by as much as 2%.

Longer range forecasts see prices rising more slowly next year, up by 2% in Alberta and Newfoundland and by more modest amounts elsewhere, in line with the trend of both price and sales growth being concentrated on Canada’s prosperous West Coast.

Although the rises are expected to be transitory, sales have yet to show signs of cooling. Activity has strengthened over the summer, rather than relapsing as expected following a spring boom thought to be attributable to Canada’s unusually bad winter. The large urban markets that originally drove the spring rebound continue to dominate, while rural markets have continued their slide.

Source: Les Calvert of www.property-abroad.com

The national average home price rose in October but the impact of Canada’s two largest markets is continuing to influence Canada-wide numbers, according to the Canadian Real Estate Association.

Across the countries prices were up 7.1% from a year ago to an average of $419,699. Once Toronto and Vancouver are removed, the annual gain slips to 5.4% and the average sale price for October drops to $330,596.

“Low interest rates continued to support sales in some of Canada’s more active and expensive urban housing markets and factored into the monthly increase for national sales,” said Beth Crosbie., president of CREA, in a statement. “Even so, sales did not increase in many local markets in Canada, which shows that national and local housing market trends can be very different.”

For the sixth straight month sales rose and last month proved to be the strongest for October since 2009.

“While the strength of national sales activity is far from being a Canada-wide phenomenon, it extends beyond Vancouver, Calgary and Toronto,” said Gregory Klump, chief economist with CREA. “Sales in a number of B.C. markets have started to recover from weaker demand over the past couple of years. They have also been improving across much of Alberta, where interprovincial migration and international immigration are reaching new heights.”

Actual October sales were up 7% from a year and sales were up 70% of all local markets, led by Greater Vancouver and the Fraser Valley, Victoria, Calgary, and Greater Toronto. Those five markets combined for 40% of the national sales activity.

For the first 10 months of the year, sales were now up 5.2% from a year ago and 2.5% above the 10-year average for the same period.

Source: Garry Marr, Financial Post

The average price of a home sold through the Multiple Listing Service last month was $419,699 – up 7.1 per cent from $391,931 in October 2013. That’s according to new numbers from the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA), which reports on the market each month.

Such high costs have many wondering whether it’s a good idea to buy and what they should watch out for.

While everyone’s decision-making process will be different, here are a few things worth considering when shopping for a home.

The market could fall

Many people who bought homes in Canada in the past decade have profited from rising house prices.

But home prices sometimes fall, says Paul Anglin, a real estate professor from the University of Guelph.

“Most people get excited about the rising part,” he says. “They forget about the falling part.”

Fresh in the minds of many is the 2008 U.S. housing market crash, which left millions of Americans with homes worth less than they had paid. Prices have mostly recovered, but many lost money in the meantime.

Markets have crashed in Canada, too. For example, from 1990 to 1996, prices dropped every year in Toronto.

Both The Bank of Canada and Moody’s have warned recently that a crash could happen again in Canada, especially if the economy slows down.

Local markets differ

Housing markets tracked by CREA vary widely by city. Prices are up 9.5 per cent year-over-year in Calgary, 8.3 per cent in the Greater Toronto Area and six per cent in Greater Vancouver.

However, they were flat in Saskatoon, Ottawa, Greater Montreal and Greater Moncton – and down 3.4 per cent in Regina.

The eye-popping increases in Toronto and Vancouver are likely because “lots of people want to move there and there’s limited space,” says Anglin.

Calgary is a different story, however, because it’s highly dependent on the success of the local oil extraction economy, which is tied to the global price of oil.

Although Calgary has been booming for years, global oil prices have recently started to fall. “If the price of oil stays low, then [a crash in Calgary] is exactly what you would expect,” says Anglin.

Transit lines can boost value

Living close to good rapid transit options can boost the value of a property for obvious reasons – people want the shortest possible commutes.

“You want to be in a place that is convenient – or that will be convenient,” says Anglin. In other words, don’t just consider existing transit lines, but also where proposed transit could be built.

Think about SmartTrack in Toronto or the Broadway Subway proposal in Vancouver.

“But you also need to figure out how much inconvenience there will be during construction phase,” says Anglin. Buyers who end up too close to a new train station might have to put up with years of dust and noise.

Buying an unbuilt home can be risky

Buying pre-construction can be appealing, because everything will be new once the home is done.

It can also be risky.

“If you’re buying from a plan, you don’t know what will actually be there,” says Anglin.

For example, those who buy a condo from a plan, do not know who else will be in the building, he says.

Some buildings have a large proportion of renters, who may be noisier or dirtier than owners who live in their homes.

It’s also worth keeping in mind that condo fees are more predictable after a building has been up and running for a few years, says Anglin.

And while buyers used to get a discount in exchange for the unpredictability, as TD Bank pointed out earlier this year, resale condos may now be a better deal.

How long do you plan to stay?

Potential buyers need to ask themselves how long they plan to stay, because the longer they are willing to stay, the lower the risk of being forced to sell when prices are low.

“If you plan to be in some place for a year, maybe you should be renting,” says Anglin.

“If you plan to be there for 10 years,” he says, “the monthly wiggles on the average price probably don’t matter, because 10 years from now, economic conditions will be very different.”

Source: Josh Dehaas, CTVNews.ca

Homeowners who choose the convenience of city life over the more generous living space in suburbia are driving Canada’s real estate market, according to a new report jointly produced by consultancy PricewaterhouseCoopers and the non-profit Urban Land Institute.

The annual outlook on emerging real estate trends says the move downtown, which has emerged in the past few years, will continue as more Canadians decide to stay in or move back to urban cores.

Much of this is due to changing demographics as young families and millennials forgo the white picket fence and house in the suburbs to take advantage of downtown living, where properties are smaller but offer more conveniences, said the 112-page report released Tuesday.

According to Statistics Canada, the most recent numbers available show that the population of urban centres grew 7.1 per cent between 2006 and 2011.

Frank Magliocco, Canadian real estate leader at PricewaterhouseCoopers, said there are a number of factors behind the urban growth, including that Canadians are more aware of the environmental costs associated with urban sprawl as well as the cost in time and money of lengthy commutes.

As well, provincial land use regulations that protect green spaces — for example Toronto’s Greenbelt involving about 800,000 hectares of protected land from Peterborough, Ont., to Niagara Falls, Ont. — have made it more difficult to find land to develop and has pushed an explosion of condominium growth in major cities.

But one of the concerns is what will happen to these urban properties once the younger generation grows out of them.

“This continuing urbanization trend has fuelled the condo boom in Toronto and other cities, but some question what will happen as the lifestyles of today’s young urban singles and couples change. Will they move out of the city core in search of larger homes, schools and services, or will they — like their counterparts in other parts of the world — simply adapt to smaller living spaces?” the report asks.

Magliocco said Canadian cities will either go the way of New York, where families are willing to sacrifice space to live in the city, or the way of London, where families are used to living outside the city and commuting downtown for work.

The rapidly growing condo markets in cities such as Toronto and Vancouver have also raised concerns about an oversupply of units and whether the boom is overly weighted towards wealthy, foreign investors who lease the units to others.

Meanwhile, an expected rise next year in interest rates from historically low levels may also influence demand in the housing market.

However, among the 1,400 people interviewed and surveyed for the report, which included private property investors and developers, commercial developers and real estate service firms, the consensus was that the Canadian market is strong enough to weather a bump in mortgage rates.

“The improvement in the U.S. economy indicates that higher rates could be coming, but the economic stability in Canada and the United States will continue to attract foreign capital,” said the report. “In addition, retiring baby boomers are likely to flood the market with private capital as they look to turn stock options and retirement packages into stable, income-generating assets.”

Overall, the report sees developers responding to the needs of downtown dwellers by building more mixed-used properties, which include residential and retail space.

“Looking ahead, we can expect to see more and more retail and services along the streets of Canada’s city cores and along major transit arteries, especially where new developments predominate. Major brands are likely to move into these new spaces, too — though with new formats and smaller footprints,” said the report.

The report also noted that Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver, will see the most residential growth in 2015, a trend that has been helped by more jobs becoming available in the West than in Central Canada, while Calgary and the Greater Toronto Area will hold the most potential for retail growth.

Source: Linda Nguyen, The Canadian Press

Canada’s housing market has cooled off slightly from this summer, but regional disparities make one-size-fits-all approaches to controlling it difficult.

The Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) reported Oct. 15 that September’s national home sales fell 1.4 percent from the August level — the first monthly decline since January.

In addition, house prices only rose 0.3 percent in September after a rise of 0.8 percent in August, according to the Teranet–National Bank House Price Index (HPI) measure released the same day. On a year-over-year basis, prices rose 5.4 percent.

CREA notes that year-over-year price growth has been in the range of about 5.0 to 5.5 percent since the start of the year, based on the Multiple Listing Service HPI measure.

Canada’s housing market would be characterized very differently if it were not for Vancouver, Calgary, and Toronto. By both Teranet–National Bank HPI and MLS HPI measures, these three cities topped the national level notably.

Based on the Teranet–National Bank HPI, Calgary has had the strongest price growth at 9.5 percent, followed by Toronto at 7.4 percent, and Vancouver at 6.5 percent. Without these three cities, the other eight cities in the index saw an average price increase of about 1.8 percent.

Housing starts climbed slightly from August to September, but remain below the year’s high point of 203K in July. This suggests, according to BMO’s Oct. 8 housing starts analysis report, that “overall building activity in Canada remains within the range required to satisfy demographic demand.”

Only Alberta’s September housing starts were significantly over the province’s 12-month average and level from a year ago, according to the analysis from BMO. “Alberta simply needs the homes, with the population expanding close to 3 percent year-over-year and rent growth now running at a five-year high,” BMO stated in its report.

Housing starts are weak in most parts of the country, notably Quebec and Atlantic Canada. Even Toronto condo starts hit a 4.5-year low in the third quarter.

Canadian finance minister Joe Oliver gave a press conference on Oct. 14, after his meeting with private sector economists in Toronto. He reiterated that he doesn’t believe there is a housing bubble, a view that echoes that of the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. (CMHC), the Bank of Canada, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and Scotiabank CEO Brian Porter.

Oliver touched on the “dual market” in Canadian real estate in that Toronto, Calgary, and Vancouver are seeing price increases while the rest of the country isn’t.

What do these three cities have going for them that others in Canada do not? Young populations, immigration growth, and good employment prospects are a few reasons. Vancouver also benefits more than other regions from Chinese foreign investment.

Regarding concerns on an overheating housing market, Oliver listed measures that his predecessor, the late Jim Flaherty, took to cool the housing market. “[We’ve] taken the froth, we believe, out of the market,” Oliver said. “[We] don’t see the need for dramatic changes.”

The effects of lower mortgage rates through much of 2014 has spurred home sales and price increases and likely played a role in household debt-to-disposable income ticking up in the second quarter, a more worrisome sign. The Bank of Canada did note at its last rate-setting meeting on Sept. 3 that “activity in the housing market has been stronger than anticipated.” It has since moderated slightly, but regional disparities are more pronounced.

And as the global economy takes a turn for the worse with disinflationary concerns and weakness most notably emanating out of Europe and China, bond yields are reaching their lowest levels in over a year.

Canada’s five-year bond yield is at its lowest level since May 2013. This creates the potential for lower fixed-rate mortgages and potentially another wave of home price increases and sales as houses are seen as more affordable. Canadian borrowers could get more in debt as well.

In the last couple of weeks, three of Canada’s big banks have lowered significantly their five-year fixed mortgage rates. The average five-year fixed mortgage rate from the six big Canadian banks was 3.53 percent on Oct. 15, down from 4.08 percent a week earlier.

Macroeconomic policy and monetary policy are very blunt tools as they are applied across the whole economy. What might be appropriate in Vancouver would clearly not be in Quebec City, for example.

Source: Rahul Vaidyanath, Epoch Times